GallerySunday, 2 April 2000
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Lat Mailer/Chat Reminder for
Sunday, April 2, 2000 Date:
4/2/00
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We'll go directly to our features this week.
- An interesting review of a conference on minority rights in the Baltics (two years ago, and it seems little has changed)
- Cesis, and many other Latvian towns, are simply falling down
- Russian Duma considers multiple legislative measures against Latvia
- Russia complains about anti-Russian discrimination in Latvia, Estonia, and of Nazism rehabilitation
- Russia repeats old saw that NATO expansion to Baltics threatens Russia, can't predict it's own reaction, after NATO Secretary General visits Latvia and is positively impressed
- The three Baltic presidents meet
- EU Enlargement Commissioner warns Russia to stop meddling in EU expansion into Eastern Europe
- Comments today from NATO's Supreme Commander in Europe, General Clark on Latvia
- One in the "lest we forget" category
Next week we hope to include comments we've received on
the suggestion that Latvians fill out the census by categorizing themselves as
"Latvian" in the race origin.
Our apologies for being late this week,
sadly, family matters took precedence. The web site mailer archive should be
updated later this week.
IN ACCORDANCE WITH AOL'S MAIL POLICY and good manners, please let Silvija (Silvija) know if you wish to be deleted from our mailing list. Past mailers are archived at latvians.com. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome.
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This page chronicles a conference in May, 1998 on minority rights in the Baltics, entitled: BALTIC-RUSSIAN RELATIONS IN THE NEW GEOPOLITICAL FRAMEWORK, sponsored by the Project on Ethnic Relations, based in Princeton, New Jersey (USA). Even though the conference is a couple of years old now, the same issues and rhetoric are still in the news today.
Link: Balto-Russian Relations URL: http://www.websp.com/~ethnic/new/balt_rel.htm
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RIGA, March 28 (Itar-Tass)
— One resident was killed in Cesis, western Latvia, as an old building
wall crashed down there on Tuesday.
The house is
standing on a narrow street and the rubble can only be shoveled away. Police
cannot say whether any other people are trapped under the collapsed wall.
The city Duma met to discuss the accident later on
Tuesday. Old and delapidated houses are a common sight in many Latvian towns.
Most of them have been returned to their former owners who often do not have
the means to renovate or pull down their reclaimed property. Most victims dying
in such houses are either children who choose them for games or persons without
permanent residence who burn alive in fires which they set through their own
negligence.
fil/ Copyright 2000
Itar-Tass domestic news digest of March 29 — #2
MOSCOW — The Russian State
Duma will hold a regular plenary meeting on Wednesday. "The day will be very
busy. About forty bills and decisions are on the order of the day," Duma First
Vice Speaker Lyubov Sliska told journalists on Wednesday morning. The MPs will
discuss first the third readings of two federal bills — "On Measures of
the Russian Federation to Prevent Violations of the Basic Rights and Liberties
of Russian Citizens and Fellow-Countrymen in the Latvian Republic" and "On
Measures to Render Humanitarian Aid to Citizens of the Russian Federation and
Fellow-Countrymen Permanently Residing in Latvia in View of Numerous Violations
of Human Rights and of the Rights of Russians in the Latvian Republic".
GENEVA, March 29 (Itar-Tass)
— Russia on Wednesday criticised Latvia and Estonia for discrimination
against their Russian speakers.
Russian Deputy
Foreign Minister Sergei Ordzhonikidze said at a session of the U.N. human
rights commission that national minorities living in those Baltic nations face
either "compulsory assimilation or forceful banishment".
Latvia and Estonia are witnessing "attempts to revise
the results of the Second World War", those who fought fascists are being
persecuted and Nazi ideology justified, Ordzhonikidze said.
The deputy minister pointed out that advocates of the
NATO-centrist system are keeping silent over the deteriorating situation in
Latvia and Estonia.
They are leaving unnoticed
numerous manifestations of discrimination, xenophobia, ethnical intolerance,
anti-Semitism and police brutality, he said.
ala/Copyright 2000
Itar-Tass military-political news digest of
March 30
CHELYABINSK
— The Russian Defense Ministry has extremely negatively met the statement
by NATO Secretary-General George Robertson that Latvia could be admitted to the
Western alliance. Defense Ministry military cooperation department chief Leonid
Ivashov told reporters on Thursday that "NATO's expansion to the east and
inclusion of the Baltic states into the alliance will create additional threats
to security of Russia". Ivashov said "with the admission to the North Atlantic
alliance of the Baltic states, NATO comes right to the borders of the Russian
Federation". "Russia cannot but react to such a step. But what Russia's
reaction will be is premature to say now," Ivashov said.
VILNIUS, March 30 (Itar-Tass)
— The Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian presidents, Valdas Adamkus, Vaira
Vike-Freiberga and Lennart Meri, gathered for a summit in Vilnius on Thursday
in the residence of the Lithuanian head of state.
The three presidents discussed the development of
closer economic and political cooperation, integration into the European Union
and NATO, and relations with neighbouring countries, primarily with Russia
after Vladimir Putin's victory in the presidential elections on March 26.
Adamkus, Vike-Freiberga and Meri expressed the hope
that Putin "will encourage the development of good-neighbourly relations with
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia". They spoke at a joint press conference upon
completion of their summit.
Meri said he supports
Putin, who called for the "dictatorship of the law" in Russia. This means that
"he will strengthen democracy and legislation" in Russia, Meri stressed.
Answered on Moscow's possible imposition of economic
sanctions against Latvia because of its policy towards ethnic Russians,
Vike-Freiberga said that "Latvia's laws respond to generally-recognised
international standards and Riga is not going to change them".
The three presidents stressed that Baltic countries'
solidarity will be the major principle to be guided by Lithuania, Latvia and
Estonia by strengthening their international influence.
The presidents added that their countries seek to
fulfill common goals — membership in the European Union and NATO.
They also considered the creation of the united Baltic
energy system, which will be independent from Russia, and its accession to
Europe's energy system.
In addition, Baltic
business circles began their forum in Vilnius to be attended by the three
presidents.
yur/Copyright 2000
TALLINN, Estonia (Reuters)
— The European Union's Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen warned
Russia Friday not to interfere with the 15-nation bloc's expansion into eastern
Europe.
"If Russia wants to discuss problems with
us which are related to accession, it is justified to do that. But we will not
accept it if Russia tries to influence the accession process as such,"
Verheugen told a press conference at the end of an official visit to the
Estonian capital, Tallinn.
"The accession process
is only a matter between member states and an applicant country... And we
certainly hope that Russia's policy will be more predictable (in the future),"
Verheugen added.
The EU opened expansion talks with
Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Cyprus in 1998. In
December it added former Soviet bloc members Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and
Bulgaria along with Malta to its list of countries involved in detailed
membership talks.
Russia has said it would not
approve of EU expansion to its borders through countries such as Estonia and
Latvia.
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd.
DJ/
NATO General: Latvia "Competitive Contender" For Membership
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — NATO's
supreme commander for Europe on Sunday praised this small Baltic state for
upgrading its military as part of its campaign to join the defensive alliance
and for its contributions to peacekeeping operations in the Balkans.
Gen. Wesley Clark said Latvia is "a real competitive
contender" for NATO membership.
After meeting with
President Vaira Vike-Freiberga and other top officials, Clark said he was
impressed with efforts by the former Soviet republic to make its military more
compatible with those in NATO member states.
Clark,
who ran the alliance's air campaign in Kosovo last year, also thanked Latvia
for its contributions to NATO-led peacekeeping operations in the Balkans.
"I've been encouraged by the transformation process
under way in the armed forces," he said. "A lot is being done here and it's
being done in a very constructive way. ... It's very impressive."
Latvia, along with its Baltic neighbors Lithuania and
Estonia, have made NATO membership a top foreign policy priority and say they
hope to win invitations to the alliance by 2002.
Moscow, however, has vigorously opposed Baltic NATO
membership, saying it would be perceived as a threat to Russian security. Some
critics also say the countries, nestled between the Baltic Sea and Russia, are
too vulnerable militarily and would weaken the 19-member alliance.
Earlier this week, similar assurances to Latvia by NATO
Secretary-General George Robertson drew criticism from Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov
of the Russian defense ministry, who said the alliance's eastward expansion
would undermine its cooperation with Russia.
Clark
refused to predict whether continued Russian hostility to NATO enlargement
would slow the process but reiterated that the alliance remains open to any
qualified nation that wants to join.
Clark was in
Riga on a farewell tour of NATO candidate countries in Eastern Europe before
stepping down as supreme commander later this month. He was scheduled to fly to
Lithuania later Sunday.
Copyright 2000 Dow
Jones & Co., Inc.
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As we mentioned, this is in the "lest we forget category." From the postcard, "The 3rd Song and Dance Festivity of School Youth of the Soviet Latvia in 1972. The procession of participants in the «Daugava stadium."
[Please note, the picture
colors have been improved over the Emailed version.]
Picture is credited to J. Kreicberg
